Maggie 3 (Ishmael Reed Publishing Company)

Author Alison Mills Newman reveals a rare vision of intersections between the lives of upper middle class African Americans, cutting edge multicultural bi-coastal artists, Pentecostal Christians, and revolutionary black political activists in her second novel, MAGGIE 3. Readers will witness "a rare thing," as Nobel prize winning author Toni Morrison said of Ms. Newman's first novel, Francisco, for here is a gifted storyteller who writes "with beauty, power and purity about a woman."

MAGGIE 3 chronicles the life of the main character Maggie, as she struggles to be sincere and true to the loves of her life and their quests to shape a life consistent with the highest spiritual and moral demands of their times. Moving between Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City and back to Los Angeles, the author--who has herself lived and worked within all of these worlds--is never less than searingly honest in expressing Maggie's passions, personal difficulties and even antagonisms with aspects of these life choices.

Through Maggie's eyes as a young artist who comes of age in the 1960s, the reader can experience the daily life consequences of her evolving commitments--to be the sweetheart and wife of a black Christian evangelical minister and mother to their two children. The novel's stunning portrayal of this woman's inner thoughts reveals great joys even while she fights to overcome the harsh realities of life. Similar in style to the author's debut novel, it is "a novel in the form of a diary (or possibly a diary published as a novel)," as noted in Publishers Weekly.

MAGGIE 3 is published by Ishmael Reed Publishing Company, a small independent press that for over thirty years has published distinguished writing luminaries. The company is proud to utilize the print-on-demand technology of Xlibris to continue to bring more writers to more readers.